And into the dusky room there tottered a rather tall, heavily veiled, feminine figure. It did not gaze at the shrinking couple in astoundment. It did not launch into exclamation at its discovery. Instead, it sank weakly down into the nearest chair. "Oh!" it moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" "Who--who are you?" huskily demanded Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh! Oh!" moaned the figure. "Isn't it terrible! Isn't it terrible! But I didn't mean to do it--I didn't mean to do it, Caroline!" "It's not--not Olivetta?" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "It was an accident!" the figure wailed on. "I couldn't help myself. And if you knew what I've gone through to get here, I know you'd forgive me." Mrs. De Peyster had lifted the veil up over the hat. "Olivetta! Then--after all--you're not dead!" "No--if I only were!" sobbed Olivetta. "Then who is that--that person who's coming here this morning?" "I don't know!" Then Olivetta's quavering voice grew hard with indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral under false pretenses!" "But the papers said the body had on my clothes." "Yes--I suppose it must have had." "But how--" Mrs. De Peyster recalled their precarious position. "Matilda, lock the door. But, Olivetta, how could it ever, ever have happened?" "I followed your directions--and got to Paris all right--and everything was going splendid--and I was beginning to enjoy myself--when--when--Oh, Caroline, I--I--" "You what?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster. "I lost my purse!" sobbed Olivetta. "Lost your purse?" "I left it in a cab when I went to the Louvre. And in it was all my money--my letter of credit--everything!" "Olivetta!" "And I didn't dare cable you for more. For if I had sent a cable to you here, it might have betrayed you." "And what did you do?" "There was nothing for me to do but to--to--sell some of your gowns." "Oh!" Mrs. De Peyster was beginning dimly to see the drift of things. Olivetta's mind wandered to another phase of her tribulations. "And the price I got for them was a swindle, Caroline. It was--it was a tragedy! For your black chiffon, and your silver satin, and your spangled net--" "But this person they took for me?" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster. "Oh, whoever she is, she must have bought one of them. She could have bought it for nothing--and that Frenchman who cheated me--would have doubled his money. And after she bought it--she--she"--Olivetta's voice rang out with hysterical resentment--"she got us all into this trouble by walking into the Seine. It's the most popular pastime in Paris, to walk into the Seine. But why," ended Olivetta with a spiteful burst,--"why couldn't she have amused herself in her own clothes? That's what I want to know!" "And then? What did you do?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.